


taking care of Will Graham

by CheekyDoodles



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bathing/Washing, Caretaking, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Touch-Starved, Touching, Will Graham Has Encephalitis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 06:52:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4867250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheekyDoodles/pseuds/CheekyDoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is basically just a fleshed out idea i had where on one instance Will shows up at Hannibal's house while suffering from encephalitis, and Hannibal takes care of the sweet doofus, yet is still preoccupied with scrambling his brain for fun. enjoy?</p>
    </blockquote>





	taking care of Will Graham

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically just a fleshed out idea i had where on one instance Will shows up at Hannibal's house while suffering from encephalitis, and Hannibal takes care of the sweet doofus, yet is still preoccupied with scrambling his brain for fun. enjoy?

Wednesday night dinner is coming along nicely for Dr. Lecter, as usual. Wednesday, is seen for some as a metaphorical “hump” to be traversed. But for the doctor, it’s merely soup night. The silver-bodied dutch oven hums pleasantly from its hot seat on the back burner, exhaling mouthfulls of fragrant steam. It’s the smell created from a three hour simmer of onions, the black meat of a halved Silkie chicken and the cubed rump of one Mr. Johnson-- a particularly vulgar insurance representative.

Sleeves rolled to his elbows, Hannibal lines up a row of carrots on his worktop and renders each one into quarter-inch medallions with the chef’s knife. Each chop segments the otherwise quiet atmosphere, striking through the lighthearted melody of Chopin trickling from the radio on the counter.

Hannibal ushers the orange medallions into the broth, along with a bowl of freshly shelled peas and a handful of dried wolfberries-- ingredients bringing a lovely resplendence to his soup.

Hannibal sits five jewel-red plum tomatoes on his cutting block and his doorbell rings. He checks the clock: 6:42. To his knowledge, he hasn’t invited anyone for dinner. Not that it would inconvenience him. He’s let the process get away from him and prepared too much food. Which isn’t like him, but his mind has been otherwise involved, as of late.

He’s just wiped his hands on the front of his apron when one of those preoccupations, a disheveled Will Graham, stumbles into the atmosphere of his kitchen.

“Doctor Lecter?” He croaks as if he’s just woken up, which may as well be the case.  

The sore thumb on a sore hand is the fact that he’s not wearing any pants, yet he seems to have remembered to don his olive coat and boots. Dirty boots, tracking ugly slush on the kitchen floor. His bare legs are white like sugar save for some ugly streaks of dirt and a cut on his left knee. He’s most likely chilled to the bone in this weather. Even so, a faint glaze of fever-perspiration lingers over his dirt-streaked brow, bleeding through his shirt under his neck; a symptom of the encephalitis currently keeping his body in its unforgiving grip.

And his smell has gone bad. It’s not the usual bouquet of cheap aftershave, anxiety and beloved collection of stray dogs. It’s hot and itchy now, like a wool sweater and sticky like a candy inside a child's fist. A nasty tendril snaking through the perfect symphony of his dinner.

“Ah, Will. I wasn’t expecting you,” Hannibal says, nonchalance contrasting the spastic energy of his unofficial patient’s mental state. “Was it casual day at the office today?”

Will doesn't seem to have registered the sarcasm. “I’m having trouble thinking-- I, I don’t know what’s real,” he winces.

Hannibal leans over to check the time on his discarded watch. He speaks as he halves the tomatoes before slipping them into the broth. They bleed into the pot, giving it a coppery cast. “It is 6:43 pm and you are in Baltimore, Maryland. Your name is Will Graham and you are currently devoid of pants in my kitchen--”

Will shakes his head once, violently so. “ _Stop it_ \-- no I don’t care who I am!” He snaps. He looks around the room wildly, as if trying to find something he's lost. Or someone. "I just need to know if this is real. Right now."

Hannibal wipes his hands once more and walks around the counter to stand before the younger man, getting a better look at him. "Do you remember coming here? Where is your car?"

"He was there... I saw him."

"Saw who, Will?"

"G-Garret Jacob Hobbs. He was, he was in my car," Will bites out each word as if they pain him.

"Garret Jacob Hobbs is dead, Will, you watched him die--"

"No, don't lie. I know he was there--"

"There was no one there, Will. You're under a great deal of stress--"

"Please don't lie to me! He was there he was--!" Will sobs, face crumpling into a pitiful mask.

Dr. Lecter takes the younger man's shoulders, attempting to anchor him. "Will. Will you're having an episode, you need to calm down."

" _What's happening to me_?" Will cries out, hands covering his face as his body begins to wrack with spasms, mouth going slack.

"Will?" Hannibal takes his shuddering face in his hands and peels his eyelid back, checking for the dilation of an iris he doesn't find, as his eyeballs have rolled back into his skull. He brushes the hair away from Will's forehead and presses the back of his hand to the skin. It's quite hot despite the chill from possibly walking a portion of the way here, half dressed. The doctor's hands are cool in comparison, feeling the quickened pulse at Will's neck.

"A mild seizure," Dr. Lecter sighs to himself. If it wasn't mild, the man would've ended up choking on his tongue on the floor.

Will is mostly silent now, riding out the tail end of his seizure. The doctor takes in the wrecked state of Will's appearance once more. He can't let the man attempt wander home in this state, to another state. Back to his sanctity of canines and dander. He'd most likely end up on one of the steel examination tables back at the station.

He allows himself a moment to peer at his dinner longingly, for it will have to wait. At least with Will here he won't have many leftovers.

Hannibal kills the stove and takes Will by the forearm. "Come, Will. Come."

The smaller man allows himself to be led out of the kitchen with a hand on his back, weak as a lamb. Hannibal leads his not-patient into the yellow light of the bathroom. The doctor kneels by the clawfoot tub and runs a bath, testing the building water temperature on his forearm. He pours a blend of eucalyptus, spearmint and salt into the filling tub, something to soothe the nerves.

He returns to Will, still mostly drained of awareness and divests him of his coat, tossing the sorry thing into the hamper. He tugs his stained t-shirt off of limp arms, following with his boxers after not receiving any indication of refusal besides a shiver. His dirt-heavy boots go by the hamper as well, to be clapped outside later.

Hands under his arms, he guides Will's naked frame to the tub and has him step in, slowly sinking into the fresh heat with nothing more than a hiss between his teeth. He sits in an almost surly hunch, fragrant bath stopping at his forearms. Hannibal kneels at the edge of the tub and observes the ripples Will’s shivers push through the green-tinted water.

Though it appears mostly clean, he washes Will's back with a washcloth, delving into the shallow slopes between his bones. Hannibal unconsciously knows all of their names. Trapezius, teres minor, teres major, latissimus dorsi… The doctor reclines Will gingerly, trying to submerge his ratty hair when he starts to fight against him.

"No, no," Will mutters, attempting to sit up and feebly pushes at Dr. Lecter's hands. Water slops out of the tub and soils the thighs of Hannibal's gray slacks. Fortunately his sleeves are already rolled up when he takes Will’s wrists, brushing the pulse with his thumb.

"You're alright, Will. I've got you. You've got to get cleaned up, now."

After a moment, Will submits, slowly sinking down until the water kisses his temples. Hannibal releases his hands to float at his sides. Will has to bend his knees to fit in the tub comfortably, which strikes the doctor as slightly comical. Despite being only a few inches shorter than himself, Will always seems so small in a way, illusion heightened by newborn weakness.

Hannibal cradles his dark head, carding his fingers through Will's prickled scalp. He doesn't use any soap, for fear of getting it in his eyes. He simply works the tangles out of his dark curls, noticing how long his hair has gotten in the past few months they’ve known one another. Hannibal finds a few dying leaves in his hair, and even a pine needle, which he deposits into the waste basket. Will watches the ceiling with vacant eyes, the color of kyanite in the dim light. Hannibal disbelieves he's actually seeing it. When he goes to work cleaning the sick man's face, his eyes flutter shut as Hannibal wipes at the dirt on his flushed cheek.

Intimate touch of the non-lethal variety has always seemed a necessary evil to Dr. Lecter. Only ever using it as a means of persuasive deception, a patch in his seamless person suit. He never derived any real solace from it.

Until he met Will, that is. He’ll never admit it out loud, unless under the right circumstance, but he craves the moments when their skin might touch, accidentally or intentionally-- a need so much more complex than a simple sexual hunger. As a man with numerous degrees and a limb in many a field of study, he can’t explain it. Though in truth, nothing between them is accidental. The oracular desire to touch this man is a snake under Hannibal’s stomach, tasting the air, coiled and waiting patiently for the opportune time to strike.

With this granted reverence, Dr. Lecter's ministrations continue down Will's prone body. He bathes his strong arms, the smooth plane of his chest, gently scrubbing his knees free of mud until they shine pink like doll plastic. He procures a small bristled brush and deliberately cleans the ick from under each of Will's bitten down fingernails. Dirty nails might be the doctor’s bête noire.

He allows Will to soak in his mired tub for a spell, until his smallest of trembles have subsided and Hannibal thinks he may have fallen asleep. Dr. Lecter has Will out step up and out, satisfied when the drain sucks down the grayish water with a belch. He wraps Will's dripping skin in a plush bathrobe, one he hardly uses himself. His eyes are still gone as the doctor sits him on a loveseat in the bedroom and towels his hair that brings to mind the image of sea weeds washed ashore. Regardless, his smell has improved greatly.

Once his hair is more or less dry, Hannibal must find him something to wear. Will would, imaginably, be displeased to learn that he had been _bathed_ on top of having been changed. Treated like a child, he’ll complain. Hannibal genuinely smiles at that.

The clothes he settles on (a merlot colored cashmere sweater and soft pajama pants) give him the appearance of a child though, sweater and pants too long for the a sleepy, curly-haired Will. But they’ll have to do. Though dressing the full-grown man, Hannibal will argue later on, was much more arduous than dressing a child.

As an afterthought, he takes Will’s temperature. The thermometer wedged in the crook of his mouth reads a steady 99.2. It’s lower than before, he knows, yet still high enough to be of concern. Perfect.

He seats Will at the dining room table, and when he returns from the kitchen with two servings of still-hot food, he notices the return of Will’s conscious mind like one might notice a draft.

The childish man blinks the glaze from his eyes as he glances around the dining room. He finds Dr. Lecter and regards him with a vulnerable expression. Dr. Lecter doesn’t miss the gravity displayed in that Will does not attempt to mask of the discombobulation of sorts he must feel.

Each word of his speech is strung apart. “Doctor Lecter? What, I don’t remember...”

Hannibal shushes him by placing his food before him. “For dinner I have prepared a simple yet restorative soup, the broth made from black Silkie chicken and beef, coupled with fresh vegetables and dried wolfberries, or lychee berries, as you may know.”

Will blinks heavily at the dish. “Soup?”

Hannibal has seated himself and samples his dinner with the soup spoon. “Yes. Wednesday night is soup night.”

“You have… a soup night?”

“Do you find that strange?”

“No it’s just-- how did I--? I don’t even remember coming here. All I remember is, is being at home working on a boat motor.” He exhales in frustration, dragging his hands up his face. He stills, now noticing his unfamiliar attire. His face sours. “Did you… dress me?”

Hannibal swallows before answering cooly, “I had to. You showed up in quite the state of disarray.”

“Well, thanks. I suppose.”

Hannibal smiles into his wine glass. “It was no trouble. Now, eat your soup.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [ catch me on tumblr ](http://calamity-annie.tumblr.com/)


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